Tip of the Month (November 2010)

Why the column names are Column0, Column1, Column2...and what you can do about it

On occasion, the column names of a handheld table become Column0, Column1, Column2... Here's why this happens and what you can do about it.

Visual CE stores the table definitions (table name, number of columns, column names, column types) on the desktop, not the handheld. They are stored in a file in the windows folder on the desktop called WCEODBC.INI.

On occasion, Visual CE will see a table on the handheld, but not have its definition on the desktop. One way this can happen is this:

1. Connect the handheld to one desktop computer.
2. Run Visual CE on that desktop computer and create a table on the handheld (using Visual CE's FILE | CREATE TABLE or FILE | DOWNLOAD TABLE).
3. Disconnect the handheld from the first desktop computer and then connect it to some other desktop computer.
4. Run Visual CE on that other desktop computer, select FILE | NEW FORM, and select the table you created in step (2).

1. Connect the handheld to a desktop computer.
2. Run Visual CE on that desktop computer and create a table on the handheld (using Visual CE's FILE | CREATE TABLE or FILE | DOWNLOAD TABLE).
3. Uninstall (which deletes the WCEODBC.INI file).
4. Re-install Visual CE on the desktop (which installs an empty WCEODBC.INI file).
5. Run Visual CE on the desktop computer, select FILE | NEW FORM, and select the table you created in step (2).

In these cases, when you select FILE | NEW FORM, Visual CE can see the table on the handheld but there is no table definition for it in the WCEODBC.INI file, so it does its best to figure out the table definition. Usually it can figure out how many columns there are and the datatype of each column. But it can't figure out the names of the columns (which is why you sometimes see the columns named Column0, Column1, Column2, ...).

So, what can you do about this? There are two options:

Option A: If you DON'T have any forms built over the table: Use Visual CE's FILE | DOWNLOAD TABLE to download the table from the desktop/server again.

Option B: If you DO have a form (a .VCE file) built over the table: In addition to storing the table definition in the WCEODBC.INI file, the table definition is stored inside the .VCE fie. SYWARE provides a tool to extract this table definition and put it into the WCEODBC.INI file. In the Free Downloads section of our website (www.syware.com) there are some Visual CE Add-On tools. You can use one of these tools (the REBUILD tool) to replace the definition of a table in the WCEODBC.INI file with the definition of the table in the .VCE file.